The 2.3.15 update of Mantano Reader is very important. By adopting too quickly new versions of the Adobe RMSDK, we have introduced a few painful bugs that have harmed the user experience: tables in some Epub files were not correctly displayed, pictures overlapped text, Text-to-Speech sometimes entered loops or got frozen, scrolling PDFs in night mode was slow, the app crashed on some Google books… We have received quite a few (deserved) kicks but thanks to the great support of patient users who have sent a lot of books, screenshots and descriptions, we have achieved a long bug-hunting session, and fixed a lot of issues.

To avoid such inconvenience for our users in the future, we have improved our technical support organization and QA procedures and the first feedback seems very positive. The support is still available on http://support.mantano.com, but the underlying process is more efficient.

One other important topic is our Mantano Cloud platform. We had a combination of annoyances last month, including heavy hacker attacks and repeated hardware failures. Thanks to our failover architecture, our user’s data have been safe but we have decided to switch to a more robust infrastructure. This operation is not finished yet, and the Mantano Cloud service may suffer a few short interruptions, but they will (hopefully) always be controlled and not last more than a few minutes.
The subscribers of Mantano Cloud use our apps for their study or work, and deserve a first-class quality of service. Reliability his is our main concern now and the new QA and Customer Support will play a key role.

Again, thank you to all our users, we are learning a lot from them, and we have many projects for the future! But they deserve their own post…

• (Improvement) Text selection in EPUB files is now very easy and accurate !
  • A very annoying bug has been fixed: when you tried to adjust the beginning of a selection to match the beginning of a paragraph, you often selected the end of the title preceding this paragraph, or the end of the previous paragraph.
  • If you stop your finger before releasing it when you adjust a selection with one of the handles, the selection stops exactly where your finger is. But if your finger is still moving when you release it, both ends of the selection automatically extend to the beginning of the first word and end of the last word. You see ? Try it, you will feel the difference…
• (Bugfix) Turning pages in PDF reflow no longer loops on one page.
• (Bugfix) Click on a link no longer displays the toolbar or turns page
• (Improvement) Links are highlighted when tapped. This will avoid tapping repeatedly while the navigation action is being executed. This is a very, very common behavior and it was badly lacking in Mantano Reader…
• (Improvement) Miscellaneous memory consumption optimizations allow the app to run even faster.

As usual, feedback is very welcome, and… some of you can probably upgrade their notes and reviews on the Google Play store now, it’s always a good motivation for the team

PS: Besides this, the Essentials version will migrate to the new Look&Feel today, and the Lite version will follow, next week.

ESPN International, NBC Universal, Viacom, Marvel and Condé Nast¬†have selected Mantano with 4 other french startups to take part to the Digital Tech Tour 2012, in NYC, dec.2-8, 2012. This event was organized by Cap Digital with the operational support of Ubifrance and has been a great opportunity to meet key players in Digital Publishing in the US.
The 4 other french startups who have joined this program with Mantano are:

• Adways, develops innovative interactive solutions for smartphones, tablets, websites and interactive kiosks;
• Uknowhy, creator of tablets dedicated to specific use cases, whose first best-seller is the Qooq tablet, designed for the kitchen;
• Smadeo, an online service created to manage interactive videos;
• Spideo, which makes Video and TV on Demand a simpler and more personalized experience.

The trip has been very fruitful for all of us, and opened many exceptional opportunities. Thanks a lot to Cap Digital, Ubifrance and of course to the high-level executives who have received us.

• BookReader
  • Restored: “Simplify TOC” option for slow books
  • Restored: Configurable margins for PDF reflow mode through display settings popup
  • Restored: Navigation key definitions
• Dictionary
  • Fixed: removed whitespace before definition
• Layout improvements for Nexus 7
• Fixed: on older Android versions, the “Annotations” panel could not be opened thanks to the button at the bottom right corner of the screen (the visibility of this button can be controlled through the settings)

We’re still listening to you, don’t forget to look at our Support Center to find answers to your questions !

Since this version was a major step, we have adopted a new strategy: before launching it, we have published a beta version which has been made available to the users of the Premium version. We know that our application is used for important use cases and we want to minimize the risks implied by any upgrade. We have received an unvaluable support from our beta-testers and we are sincerely grateful to all of them. This beta is not available anymore, since the official 2.2.0 launch.

During 2 days, we have received passionate feedback from the first users of this new version: the deep work has been recognized, but a fact became blatant: there is a deep dichotomy between our users. Some want to get an app which reminds a book, and some prefer an app which is “just an app”! We decided to add a few settings to allow our users to fine-tune the app to their tastes. We’ll be very careful in the future to avoid expanding the number of settings, but on this major upgrade we were faced to a real need. It was a shame to waste the benefits of the new features because they are not appropriate for everyone.

To match the expectations of the largest number of users, we have prepared a new upgrade (2.2.1), which takes this feedback into account and fixes a few issues. It  is currently being uploaded to Google Play and should be shortly available.

Again, we sincerely hope that this version will be percieved as a major upgrade. It’s not the end of the road, it’s just the beginning!

PS: Remember: on Google Play, the best rating is 5 stars, not 1

Changelog for the 2.2.1 Premium version

• BookReader
  • EPUB: Page turn effect
  • EPUB: Zoom on images (tap on the image to zoom)
  • PDF: Smooth horizontal and vertical page turn, and fast “fling”
  • PDF: “Horizontal fit” renamed “Vertical page scroll” which also adjusts the zoom level to adjust the page width to the display width
  • Search function improved: search results now appear in a list, in a panel similar to the Table of Contents(Premium only)
  • When listening to TTS, the Volume buttons do not turn pages and allow to control the volume
  • PDF: new Advanced manual crop (Premium version only)
  • When looking up the last word of a sentence in the dictionary, the punctuation sign is not included anymore
  • A Setting allows to define an ‚Äúagressive‚Äù strategy to change the background. It may affect the text selection. Switch it off if you have to do such text selections. Switch it on if you just read.
  • Disabling animations also disables the Page Curl animation when reading EPUB
  • A Setting allows to remove the book borders
  • A new setting now allows to display 1 or 2 pages when reading in landscape mode
  • Annotations
    • Dictionary: open dialog and launch search with default dictionary
    • New Underline and Strikethrough effects on a selection (Premium only)
    • Icons indicating the presence of an annotation attached to a highlight or selection are now displayed close to it
    • The last selection type used (colored highlight, strikethrough, underline or selection) is remembered and applied by default on subsequent selections
• Cloud: downloads can now be canceled
• RMDSK upgraded to 9.3.2
• Annotations
  • In lexicon words, added icon to show the dictionary type origin
  • If a lexicon item has been found in a web dictionary, the web page is displayed inside the popup with a button to open the browser in full page
  • If a lexicon word is related to a book, the book’s title is displayed in the popup
  • Dictionary: the popup automatically launches a search with the default dictionary

New page curl effect when turning pages in EPUB files

“Fast fling” allows quickly browsing PDF files

Good news today!

Thanks to the feedback of our Premium users, the 2.2 Beta 3 is being published on Google Play, it should be pushed to your devices soon (the delay depends on Google Play)  !

The changelog for the miscellaneous Beta versions is at the end of this short article. The 2.2 release is very important for us, we have been very involved with a lot of users to reach this milestone. We sincerely hope you will feel a real difference and enjoy this version like we do!

….And stay tuned, this is not the end of the road !

Thank you again for your feedback, we hope to be able to publish the 2.2 final version pretty soon!

Best regards,

The whole Mantano team

CHANGELOGS

2.2 Beta 3:

• PDF :
  • Magnifying glass reconnected
  • Crop reconnected
  • Reflow reconnected
• Fixed:
  • PDF : Fixed scrolling issue in vertical view
  • Highlights / selections: fixed
• Improved:
  • Lexicon :
    • Open dialog and launch search with default dictionary

2.2 Beta 2:

• Better highlight support for PDF in both vertical and horizontal mode
• Brightness control on the left of the screen restored
• Read preference for vibration on selection
• Read preference to show/hide navigation button in the reader
• Search panel : back closes the book
• Search panel : rotation fixed
• Read preference to show/hide page number

2.2 Beta 1 (reference: latest official 2.1.2 version)

• Improved:
  • Improved layout for Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich devices
  • Improved Table of Contents performance
• Bugfixes
  • Reader :
    • Asynchronous page rendering for:
      • Page turning animation
      • Waiting animation when clicking on a link
    • TTS on a selection, the selection is displayed until the TTS stops
    • In TTS mode, the Volume button does not turn page but adjusts the volume
• Added:
  • Underline and strikethrough on a selection in the Premium version
  • If a note is attached to a selection (not a highlight), a vertical line is displayed in the margin
  • Downloads from the Cloud can now be canceled
  • It is now possible to display / hide the toolbar icons when reading PDFs
  • New Search panel in the Reader

Your have purchased our flagship product, Mantano Reader Premium for Android, and we hope you appreciate it. We are working very hard to constantly improve it, and we hope you will still appreciate the next evolutions.

We know that our application has to run smoothly and that it\’s important to provide safe upgrades. We want to make sure that the next release will be tested on a very large set of devices, and we have decided to publish a Beta version for the upcoming 2.2 release. This Beta version is available only to the Mantano Reader Premium users. You can download it on the Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mantano.reader.android.beta.

This Beta version provides aims at providing an improved reading experience:

We have added the long-awaited page curl effect for EPUBs, and 2-pages view in landscape mode
The PDF reading now provides 3 different modes:
Horizontal scroll (with fast fling)
Vertical scroll. In this mode, the page width automatically adjusts to fit the device display width
Automatic: this mode automatically selects between each of the Horizontal or Vertical scroll, depending on the device orientation (vertical scroll for landscape mode, horizontal scroll for portrait mode)
Besides this, we have added new \”underscore\” and \”strikethrough\” operations on a selection, and simplified the interaction on these selections. The application remembers the previous tool used (select / highlight / underline / strikethrough), so you can easily do many similar operations in sequence without selecting the tool. This part is still a little bit unstable, and you may have surprises when you try to modify an existing highlight for example.

The complete Changelog is at the end of this message.

Remember: this is BETA software, please do not use it for professional use. At first launch, it duplicates your database, and there is no risk for you to destroy your Mantano Reader Premium data.

The following features are not yet reconnected or are still instable in PDF documents:

Magnifying glass: NOT YET RECONNECTED
Crop: NOT YET RECONNECTED
Reflow: NOT YET RECONNECTED
Highlight selection: UNSTABLE
We have found on one of our Android 2.1 devices 1 that EPUB files do not open. We are interested in any feedback on Android 2.1 devices.

You can report your feedback through the following discussion forum: http://community.mantano.com/forums/forum/community-support/mantano-reader/mantano-reader-beta-2-2-0/

You can login on this forum thanks to your Google account.

We hope you will enjoy, and thank you again for your trust in our application !

Best regards,

The whole Mantano Team.

——————- 2.2 Beta 1 – Changelog

BookReader
Page turn effect in EPUB files
PDF: Smooth page turn and fast \”fling\”
PDF: \”Horizontal fit\” renamed \”Vertical page scroll\” which also adjusts the zoom level to adjust the page width to the display width
Search function refactored: search results now appear in a list, in a panel similar to the Table of Contents(Premium only)
TTS: For selected text, the selection disapear at the end of the TTS
The Volume buttons do not turn pages and allow to control the volume
Annotations
Added underline and strikethrough on a selection (Premium only)
Icons indicating the presence of an annotation attached to a highlight or selection are now displayed close to it
Icons indicating the presence of an annotation attached to a highlight or selection are now displayed close to it
The last selection type (colored highlight, strikethrough, underline or selection) is remembered and applied by default on subsequent selections
Cloud
Downloads can now be canceled
RMDSK upgraded to 9.3.2

1. Click on the small “Share” icon close to the book cover in the Library;
2. Select a set of contacts or enter their emails;
3. They will receive an email to notify them that you want to share a book with them;
4. They can accept or reject, from their personal space on the “Mantano Cloud” website;
5. Those who do not have a Mantano Cloud account yet will be prompted to create one;
6. When one of your contacts accepts a book:
   • If this book is already in his Library in the cloud, the annotations will be shared: you will see each other’s annotations;
   • If this book isn’t yet in his personal Library, it is inserted inside and it remains accessible forever, even if you remove this book from your library.

This sharing allows to share DRM-free ebooks as well as DRM protected books. However:

• If your contact already has the book, it will work as described above: the annotations will be shared and you will see each other’s annotations;
• If your contact doesn’t own the book yet, he will be able to download your copy but of course he will get a DRM error message when trying to open it for the first time. If he purchases the book, then, again, of course he will be able to read it (this is rather normal…) and the related annotations will be shared.

This is hopefully the beginning of a whole set of sharing options. Our roadmap includes features such as:

• Creating groups, which can be extremely useful for teachers, for example;
• Sharing specific annotations or sets of annotations with specific contacts (individuals or groups).

We will also keep improving the web interface, and provide handy browser extensions such as “Send to my Library” contextual menu items.

To try this feature, upgrade your Mantano Premium to the latest 2.1 version, or install the new Lite (free) version.

As usual, your feedback will be very appreciated!

Thanks to an audit achieved by an expert of the french Government of Education and Research, Mantano’s R&D projects have been officially recognized as innovative by OSEO! This is great news for our team, since this label will allow us to further increase R&D efforts.

Our main innovative works are our cloud platform, which allows collaborative reading, including data backup and sync between devices and sharing of annotations between users and groups, and our next generation of reading, note-taking and collaboration software. These are ambitious projects which aim at strengtehning our position on the education and professional markets.